Empty Quarter

Dear Readers,
Have you ever wondered what would be the most extreme survival experience you can imagine? This is the kind of question adventure writers like me ponder over their morning cup of coffee as they plot the next crises for their main characters. We can be very cruel to our creations - but writers know that it is only when you strike a match that it will flame. Characters need adversity in order to show us what they are made of - and keep us on the edge of our seats too!

In the first book, Ringmaster, Darcie had to survive lions and human predators in Kenya, so I had to raise the bar a few centimetres for her next high jump! I decided that I would find being stranded in the Empty Quarter the greatest challenge I could imagine. It is a term given to a large area of desert which is, as the name suggests, pretty much ‘empty' of life. The part that Darcie goes to is called the White Desert and is found in Egypt. What makes it even more remarkable than the sand dunes we usually associate with the desert are its chalk rock formations. The scouring wind has made the stone into wonderful creamy dollops and twisted pillars - a landscape that looks like it has been made for a science fiction filmset. If you don’t already know about this place, it is well worth looking up and feasting your eyes on this beautiful but perilous place.

However, a spy adventure story is not only about exciting settings - it is about the mind games, betrayals and life-threatening danger the characters face. Darcie does not know who to trust. An important new character, a friendly enemy to Darcie, is Shirley, the daughter of my (fictional) President of the United States. With Shirley onboard this cruise for problem rich kids, the stakes are very high. In Shirley’s company, Darcie is a target for far more than ordinary high school bullying. Anything they do, any mistakes they make, become an international incident attracting the wrong sort of attention from the world’s media.

You’ll find some of your favourite characters also get dragged into the mess, from Stingo, her soldier-friend from Ringmaster, to her parents and her wily old spymaster grandfather. Darcie sometimes feels like she doesn’t catch a break - but we wouldn’t want her to, would we? Where the fun and adventure in that! So fasten your safety belts for the next instalment of Darcie’s story. It’s going to be a roller coaster ride!

Julia